Some feedback about the .eu launch, and its Sunrises.

Prologue: I won’t go on and on – on purpose – about the pre-registration period of the pre-registrations launched by certain providers at great cost and at the edge of what's legal (and often beyond) before the official Sunrises. Despite their emails announcing revolutionary technologies and other "exclusive thingamajigs", it’s all about urging you to register a domain name with them without any supplementary guarantee of results and, on the contrary, we can see this by the rush they’re in. The only thing you’ll be able to be sure of, is that money will be taken out of your credit card.  I hope for you that the contradictions and blatant abuses in their marketing allow you to figure it out. At Gandi, we have made the choice to wait for the official "Sunrise", so as to correctly organize, notably all the administrative and accounting aspects, the depositing of your domain names and to communicate this unambiguously. To work on Quality rather than Quantity, to sign us up for the long term… utopian, but I love the idea. ^^

Overall, two choices are going to be possible:

*You are eligible (to easily check you are eligible) and you have the means => Take a chance (to improve the probability of obtaining it… in theory) from now on. Please note that family names, except in the particular case of celebrities, will be possible only from April 7th, 2006 for sure ("landrush", therefore on February 7th for well-known people).

Where things get complicated is when you get into the details.

If you’re eligible, you can place your request now. Yes, but. The rather complex administrative process  (see the official 46-page presentation in .pdf) is such that, if you make a mistake, or if Eurid decides that you don’t fit the criteria, your request will be denied. But, of course, not the money that you have spent on this…


Worse, say that you didn’t make an error in all the red tape (written proof), that Eurid confirms your request…  well, the validation of your property could take up to… one year (and not 40 days as "some" try to make you believe, this whole subject really ticks me off…). Plus, during this period, you will be "on hold" without being able to use the domain name. In short, this is going to be long, this is going to be expensive, and maybe it won’t even make you an owner of whatever it is, despite the unavoidable sums you have had to pay out… but at least you will have calmed your fears, and enriched the people who want only the best for you.

Now, you’re demoralized, you say to yourself that I will say just anything, in brief, you doubt. Certainly. Some of you might now understand why we chose not to store your credit card numbers and personal info for months while waiting for a hypothetical availability of your domain (cf Prologue).

Take the case where you’re not eligible for the Sunrise periods. You say to yourselves, OK, I’ll wait until April 7th, 2006 to buy my .eu. There, you will pay the minimum (let’s say about 12 euros if we offer a service worthy of its name), and you will immediately have an answer concerning the availability. Inconvenient, of course: in the meantime your name could have been deposited by another company in Europe, which wanted the same domain name as you, possessing the rights to it, didn’t make errors in its application and made its request before you... I have been told this could happen ;).

To sum it up:

* Big company, well-known brand and/or no money worries (from 16 to 103 euros in reputable companies) don’t wait and deposit your domain names whenever you wantwith the profile you want.

* Private individuals, or if you think that the domain name of your company will not be deposited by another company having the same name as you in Europe (because there’s a lot of paperwork involved) wait for 2006. You will have it at once, for just a few euros and more importantly ready immediately, with the condition you find a domain name that’s available, but you will be creative^^.